5 ms·

Yes, and I'm asserting that 90+% of conservatives don't fit the mold you are casting. That was the point of my response. You can find crazies on both sides of t

Yes, and I'm asserting that 90+% of conservatives don't fit the mold you are casting. That was the point of my response. You can find crazies on both sides of the political aisle. One of trump's failures is that he isn't a good statesman and so failed to unite his own party, which caused a lot of failures in the legislative process as people like John McCain voted against him just because they hated him. I sincerely wish Trump doesn't run in 2024, not because I think he would do worse than Biden (he would have been 100x better than Biden), but because his greatest strengths are also his biggest flaws, and I don't think he can lead the country effectively. The general platform of conservatives is: "this is the greatest civilization in history we've inherited. Please stop screwing it up so badly!" That may be different from the RNC platform, but Republicans at least align with conservative values more closely than democrats, so we don't have much choice but to vote for them. Unfortunately, conservatives have rarely been dominant even within the Republican party, and many anti-conservative measures have been perpetrated by Republican presidents. I agree we need new and better ideas to go mainstream in the party, though not that these ideas don't exist. Among the weaknesses of the Republican party in the past decade have been the unwillingness of the party elites to sense the times and pay attention to their constituents or to the looming culture wars. As it is most of the time, the strongest argument to vote for a party is not that that party is great, but that the other party is worse. I have no solution for that.

jamincan 5y ago
Doesn't a majority of Republican voters believe the 2021 election was stolen? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-2020-election-poll-trump-biden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-...
- bavell 5y ago
  The poll you are citing looks like it asked if Republicans thought trump was the "true president". I could see a lot of republicans responding flippantly just to poke fun and see some feathers get ruffled. Also, N = ~750 Republicans polled over 2 days but they extrapolate the results to the entire country? Not exactly rigorous science here.
standardUser 5y ago
Polling consistently shows that the majority of Republican voters do not think Biden won the 2020 election. In my mind, that proves your theory false. A recent UMass poll found that 71% of Republicans think Biden's election was definitely (46%) or probably (25%) not legitimate. In an Ipsos poll last year, 53% of Republicans when asked who "the true President is right now" said Donald Trump. There are dozens of polls showing the exact same thing. You're also ignoring the 147 elected members of Congress that voted against certifying the election results, and the countless mainstream conservatives politicians and pundits who are constantly promoting provably false conspiracy theories, and not just the Big Lie, often it's even far more nonsensical garbage. This is not a fringe movement, this is the mainstream Republican Party.
JTrilogy 5y ago
I don’t think the stats agree with you. A December 2021 poll by UMass Amherst showed only 21% of Republicans thought Biden’s election was legitimate[1] and 54% blamed the Jan6 violence on Democrats or the Capitol Police.[2] The numbers are almost the same when broken up by ideology (conservative/independant/liberal) instead of party affiliation. It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News. Keeping the audience’s attention is the top priority, so facts matter less than feelings. [1]: https://polsci.umass.edu/toplines-and-crosstabs-december-2021-national-poll-presidential-election-jan-6th-insurrection-us https://polsci.umass.edu/toplines-and-crosstabs-december-202... [2]: https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/Jan6thAnniversaryCrosstabs.pdf https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/Jan6thAnniversa... (page 5)
- PathOfEclipse 5y ago
  And the majority of young adults in 2016 thought Trump was illegitimate: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/majority-young-americans-view-trump-illegitimate-president-poll-n735426 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/majority-young-american... I don't, however, take either poll seriously. Also, the word "illegitimate" can be interpreted multiple ways. One meaning is "not genuine". Many Republicans are unhappy with, among other things: * the shameful lying and misinformation spread by corporate media outlets during election season. These organizations outright lied and just didn't care. The ends justified the means: https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-staffer-networks-trump-office-coverage-propaganda https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-staffer-networks-trump-off... * Shameful outsized influence and suppression of stories by big tech. For instance, The Hunter Biden story got completely quashed by Twitter. It turns out the story is mostly true and could have affected the election. There is significant evidence that Joe Biden was involved in corrupt deals as well. In a more just world, Biden would probably be out of office and in jail: https://news.yahoo.com/might-not-hunter-biden-shenanigans-085015437.html https://news.yahoo.com/might-not-hunter-biden-shenanigans-08.... * Corrupt influence by wealthy democrats like Mark Zuckerburg, who spent millions to potentially influence the outcome of the election: https://bbc-edition.com/entertainment/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg/ https://bbc-edition.com/entertainment/the-2020-election-wasn... * States like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin breaking their own laws at election time. They are plenty of ways to justify using the word "illegitimate" without claiming anything overtly illegal was done to successfully change the results of the election. It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News I don't follow Fox News or Infowars, but I know of numerous examples of lies and misinformation coming from NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, NPR, and so on. Maybe both sides peddle in misinformation. Maybe one side peddles in it a lot more than the other. I'm going to need to see more than this UMass poll to convince me that it's the republican side that's the bigger problem.

jamincan 5y ago

Doesn't a majority of Republican voters believe the 2021 election was stolen? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-2020-election-poll-trump-biden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-...

bavell 5y ago
The poll you are citing looks like it asked if Republicans thought trump was the "true president". I could see a lot of republicans responding flippantly just to poke fun and see some feathers get ruffled. Also, N = ~750 Republicans polled over 2 days but they extrapolate the results to the entire country? Not exactly rigorous science here.

standardUser 5y ago

Polling consistently shows that the majority of Republican voters do not think Biden won the 2020 election. In my mind, that proves your theory false. A recent UMass poll found that 71% of Republicans think Biden's election was definitely (46%) or probably (25%) not legitimate. In an Ipsos poll last year, 53% of Republicans when asked who "the true President is right now" said Donald Trump. There are dozens of polls showing the exact same thing. You're also ignoring the 147 elected members of Congress that voted against certifying the election results, and the countless mainstream conservatives politicians and pundits who are constantly promoting provably false conspiracy theories, and not just the Big Lie, often it's even far more nonsensical garbage. This is not a fringe movement, this is the mainstream Republican Party.

JTrilogy 5y ago

I don’t think the stats agree with you. A December 2021 poll by UMass Amherst showed only 21% of Republicans thought Biden’s election was legitimate[1] and 54% blamed the Jan6 violence on Democrats or the Capitol Police.[2] The numbers are almost the same when broken up by ideology (conservative/independant/liberal) instead of party affiliation. It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News. Keeping the audience’s attention is the top priority, so facts matter less than feelings. [1]: https://polsci.umass.edu/toplines-and-crosstabs-december-2021-national-poll-presidential-election-jan-6th-insurrection-us https://polsci.umass.edu/toplines-and-crosstabs-december-202... [2]: https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/Jan6thAnniversaryCrosstabs.pdf https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/Jan6thAnniversa... (page 5)

PathOfEclipse 5y ago
And the majority of young adults in 2016 thought Trump was illegitimate: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/majority-young-americans-view-trump-illegitimate-president-poll-n735426 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/majority-young-american... I don't, however, take either poll seriously. Also, the word "illegitimate" can be interpreted multiple ways. One meaning is "not genuine". Many Republicans are unhappy with, among other things: * the shameful lying and misinformation spread by corporate media outlets during election season. These organizations outright lied and just didn't care. The ends justified the means: https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-staffer-networks-trump-office-coverage-propaganda https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-staffer-networks-trump-off... * Shameful outsized influence and suppression of stories by big tech. For instance, The Hunter Biden story got completely quashed by Twitter. It turns out the story is mostly true and could have affected the election. There is significant evidence that Joe Biden was involved in corrupt deals as well. In a more just world, Biden would probably be out of office and in jail: https://news.yahoo.com/might-not-hunter-biden-shenanigans-085015437.html https://news.yahoo.com/might-not-hunter-biden-shenanigans-08.... * Corrupt influence by wealthy democrats like Mark Zuckerburg, who spent millions to potentially influence the outcome of the election: https://bbc-edition.com/entertainment/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg/ https://bbc-edition.com/entertainment/the-2020-election-wasn... * States like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin breaking their own laws at election time. They are plenty of ways to justify using the word "illegitimate" without claiming anything overtly illegal was done to successfully change the results of the election. It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News I don't follow Fox News or Infowars, but I know of numerous examples of lies and misinformation coming from NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, NPR, and so on. Maybe both sides peddle in misinformation. Maybe one side peddles in it a lot more than the other. I'm going to need to see more than this UMass poll to convince me that it's the republican side that's the bigger problem.